She wrote on her blog yesterday: “They looked like Apple products. It looked like an Apple store. It had the classic Apple store winding staircase and weird upstairs sitting area. The employees were even wearing those blue t-shirts with the chunky Apple name tags around their necks.”

She added: “You have already guessed the punchline, of course: this was a total Apple store ripoff. A beautiful ripoff – a brilliant one – the best ripoff store we had ever seen (and we see them every day). But some things were just not right: the stairs were poorly made. The walls hadn’t been painted properly.”

BirdAbroad’s photos show that the shop has in-store branding and even furniture that looks very similar to that which would be in a genuine Apple Store. The store’s stock, according to BirdAbroad, “may or may not be genuine”, though it does appear to be genuine from what can be seen in the photos.

BirdAbroad wrote in her post that the staff at the store “all genuinely think they work for Apple”.

It’s fairly common to hear of fake products found in China. Fake iPhones and iPads are commonly pictured for sale in the country. Faking an entire store seems like something new. However, BirdAbroad concludes: “A ten minute walk around the corner revealed not one, but TWO more rip-off Apple stores.”